It’s housed in the annex to a neighborhood store, with a
temporary frontage saying, “Cooking Classes Brooklyn Fare
Kitchen.” There are no waiters and no tablecloths, and you
bring your own wine.

“When we got the third star it was a huge surprise
because Michelin is used to giving people stars for their
decor, everything,” chef Cesar Ramirez said in an interview.
“But I’ve been lucky to dine in a lot of three-Michelin-stars
all over Europe and I have to be honest with you, some of the
most memorable meals I ever had were at a counter in Japan.

“What we’re trying to do here: You go sit in a kitchen
where it’s completely raw,” he said. “Sure, it’s a $1
million kitchen. We have all the equipment money can buy. But
it’s just a kitchen. When I go to eat in a restaurant, I don’t
go to sit in a $1,000 chair, a $10 million restaurant or to
have 20 waiters around me. I like to go to a restaurant first
of all for the food.”

Hybrid Cuisine

Eighteen guests pay $185 each for a meal that might
consist of as many as 20 canapes and 10 dishes. There’s no
choice. The cuisine is a French-Japanese hybrid, centered on
seafood, each plate stripped down to minimum ingredients with
maximum flavor.

The night I ate there, there was fluke with yuzu and
daikon; caviar with crab cream; pumpkin ravioli with truffles;
blowfish with saffron sauce. Oh, and about 25 other plates.

Having a good time at Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare is
more difficult than it might sound. First, the restaurant is
booked weeks ahead. Second, it’s hard to find.

Walking from the Bergen Street subway stop in search of
this mysterious dining establishment, you may pass the
Brooklyn House of Detention and various bail-bonds offices
before reaching Brooklyn Fare, a neighborhood grocery store.

“Where’s the restaurant?” I inquired of the first
employee I encountered. “Que?” he asked. The second looked
baffled and pointed to a third, who directed me to the rest
room. A fourth nodded toward the exit and indicated I should
try next door.

Visits to France

Ramirez, born in Zimpanan, Mexico, and raised in Chicago,
married a French woman when he was 19. He still recalls his
annual visits to France during the five years they were
together. He was the first chef in Brooklyn to win two
Michelin stars, and a few jaws dropped when he was awarded a
third this year. He’s intense and shy: He doesn’t want to be
photographed and doesn’t appear to enjoy being interviewed.

He just gets on with cooking for 18 customers paying $185
a time, seated around a counter. Ramirez, 40, and his chefs
serve your food, and then he watches you eat it. Photography
is banned, as is note-taking. While that doesn’t quite make
him the Soup Nazi in terms of etiquette, nor would you want to
displease him.

Ramirez worked eight years for David Bouley, a New York
chef who is so enamored of Japan that he recently opened his
own kaiseki-style restaurant, Brushstroke, in conjunction with
the Tsuji Cooking Academy of Osaka. Whereas Bouley, in an
interview, focused on the health benefits to be derived from
the cuisine, Ramirez emphasized the pleasure of the dining
experience.

Blending Tastes

(Bouley opened Brushstroke at lunchtime for me this month
so I could eat before I met him. If you haven’t tried kaiseki,
it’s a meal of multiple courses: each miniature dish perfectly
balanced and the whole harmonious. It’s the forerunner of the
modern Western tasting menu, only the Japanese have had
hundreds of years to get it right.)

“I made a trip to Japan -- Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka -- I
thought it would be amazing to do that,” Ramirez said. “I’ve
always loved Japanese cuisine. I take the Japanese philosophy:
It’s all about the ingredients, the freshness, and always very
simple. I don’t do molecular gastronomy: I don’t do any of
that. I was in Spain when all that was happening.

“I love people to come in and just relax, have a good
time and enjoy what they’re eating, not over-think about it.
When I go to a restaurant, when I leave my kitchen, I’m no
longer a chef, I no longer cook. I go and have a good time.”

(Richard Vines is the chief food critic for Muse, the
arts and leisure section of Bloomberg News. He is U.K. and
Ireland chairman of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants awards.
Opinions expressed are his own.)